Loughborough University Director of Transport Technologies Beacon

Background

Martin gained his PhD from Loughborough University in 1990 (The Measurement and analysis of road vehicle Drag Forces) and became a post –doctoral researcher within Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering in the same year. He became a member of academic staff in 1991, initially as a Ford funded lecturer in Vehicle Aerodynamics and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2002 and was appointed to a personal chair in Automotive Aerodynamics in 2014.

Martin was the Director for the Automotive Engineering undergraduate degree programmes from 1999 – 2010 and was the head of the Department of Aeronautical and automotive Engineering 2011-2013 and resumed the role for a second term in 2016. Martin also took on the role of Loughborough Director of the Transport Technologies Beacon in 2016.

Qualifications

PhD 1990 Loughborough University

Chartered Engineer C.Eng

Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers FIMechE

Key awards and Accomplishments

Four million pounds of research income from industry and research councils.

Best paper in session award. 8th Conference of the International Sports Engineering Association (ISEA) Vienna, 2010.

Design, build and commissioning of AAE large wind tunnel.

Invited member of the European Carmakers Aerodynamics Research Association.

Development of the FIFA World Cup 2010 and 2014 match balls in association with adidas.

Outline of main research interests

The aerodynamics of bluff bodies, with particular emphasis on road vehicles aerodynamics.

Current research projects:

Automotive Aerodynamics

Front end wheel arch flow control

Computational and Experimental studies of base pressure

Simulation and measurement of wheel aerodynamics

Applications of tomographic PIV to wake flows

Investigations of wake bi-stability and the influence of wheel rotation on wake topography

Multi-physics and Multi-functional simulation methods. (EPSRC/JLR) (£1.8Million) in collaboration with colleagues in AAE.

Two way coupling of Unsteady CFD and vehicle handling models.

Computational and experimental studies of surface contamination. Including the measurement and simulation of dispersed phase contamination and the motion of surface water flows across vehicle surface.

Development of the World Cup 2018 match ball and fundamental studies of football aerodynamics

My own research work is primarily experimental, using the approximately one-quarter scale low speed wind tunnel designed in house. The principle measurement techniques are low speed two component and three component planar PIV, Hot-wire, pressure and balance measurements. In addition we design purpose built rigs for specialist measurements such as droplet contact angles to feed into simulation and surface contamination measurements.

Research groups:

Applied Aerodynamics

Also a member of the Sports Technology Research Group

Current and recent grants and contracts (with others)

Martin has been awarded research grants and contracts totalling about £4.0 million and a further £600k in equipment funding.

Current teaching responsibilities

Vehicle Design and Development

Ground Vehicle Aerodynamics

MSc module in Vehicle Aerodynamics

In addition to being the undergraduate programme director Martin set up Loughborough vehicle test week at the MIRA proving ground. This annual event, that has run every year since 1996, integrates theory, computer simulation and practical vehicle testing into a unigue student experience.

Current administrative responsibilities

Head of Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering.

Director of the Loughborough University Transport Technologies Beacon.

In vehicle aerodynamics quite subtle changes in geometry can have a big influence on the flow-field. This paper specifically shows this effect and also demonstrates that the widely used Ahmed test case is a special case rather than a generic description of the flowfield.

External collaborators

Martin has worked with many companies over the last 30 years including National Power, Rover Group, Audi, Benetton/Renualt F1, Land Rover, BAR Honda, Dominic Hunter, Nissan Group, adidas and Dunlop Slazenger. The main collaborators have been: